The Hammer of the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

piercing dark gaze.
    But all she said, equally naturally, was "So? I am glad to hear it. That we've travelled those hard hills before won't make them the less perilous; we'll be happier, having her with us." She hesitated a moment, then, before adding "Take good care of her, Elof. She is a rare creature."
    He nodded, knowing that her concern was not for Kara. "I intend to, Ils. Believe me, I do."
    Thus it was the coming of the duergar smiths that left him free to put his purpose into effect; and how matters might have gone otherwise, none can say. That afternoon, when he had sent them about the many tasks he had in hand, he found himself suddenly with a little time to spare. Quitting the great forge that was his in the vaults of the ancient Halls of the Smith's Guild, he strolled along wide corridors that rang and chimed with the strokes of heavy hammers, roared with the breath of bellows and furnace; the weighty hangings that were mounted over the walls of smooth stone to deaden these echoes had long since darkened to a sooty black. He mounted the wide stairs into cleaner air and quieter, past the newly refurbished libraries and scholar's rooms to the upper floors in whose smaller chambers the master jewellers and fine artificers kept their workshops. Here the din echoing along the walls was shriller, swifter, a tingling and chiming of light hammers and fine instruments against rare metals and gems; here it was the acrid stench of solders, corrosives and cleansing pickles that tainted the air, the hangings stained and faded and in places charred or withered through. At a high window a bent old mastersmith, surrounded by a gaggle of black-garbed apprentices, was demonstrating a delicate instrument, explaining the virtues of orientation and steadiness worked into its metals. Elof nodded to them as he passed, thinking back to his own apprentice days. He knew the device, an aid to navigation made to determine very precisely the elevation of sun, moon and stars; he wished devoutly that some instrument might measure as minutely the courses of their Steerers.
    He paused before a tall door of hardened oak marked with a name in fine-laced silver, knocked lightly and entered at the muffled summons. A lean woman of about his years looked up from the gilded chalice she was burnishing, and her large eyes widened further. "Good day, Master!" She rose awkwardly from her bench, but he motioned her back with a smile.
    "And to you also, Master; don't let me disturb it!" She smiled hesitantly, brushing brown locks back from her forehead; a nervous gesture it seemed. He knew from Roc that Marja was always nervous in his presence, yet she looked at him with the eyes of a fellow smith. "My errand should devour little of your precious time, a minor matter upon which I would know the mind of a master jeweller, one whose craft is turned so closely to adorning the body. Which, think you, of all the noble metals, has the greatest affinity with the body, with human flesh and blood?"
    Marja subsided slowly onto her bench, her face already slackening with the distraction of thought. "Why… gold, I suppose many would say. That is the tradition, anyhow. For the softness of it, they say… and the seeming warmth…"
    Elof sat down in front of her. "And you?" he prompted.
    "I… I am not of that mind, not wholly. Less so, since I read some scholars of the old Eastlands here. For the greatest affinity might you not need to look beyond metals altogether? To some of those odd stuffs the ancient mastersmiths made, akin to metal in their properties but more malleable?" She knitted her fingers with enthusiasm. "There was a tale old Hjoran told me once, of a stuff that was spun… spun … from the very stuff of life itself, living matter reduced to its ultimate pure ash, and it was stronger than any metal, lighter too. It was one of the heroic magesmiths of Morvan made it, I remember… or of Kerys, even. Thyrve, or Aluki Three-finger, or Vayde… somebody like